LOGAN, Utah — Safran Electronics & Defense will establish a new production line for satellite electric propulsion systems in the United States to serve commercial and U.S. government customers.
Safran announced Aug. 5 it intends to open a facility in Colorado that it will use to produce its EPS X00 electric thrusters, intended for smaller spacecraft in low Earth orbit. The company expects the first systems to come off that production line in the first quarter of 2026.
The line will be a mirror of an existing line in France for the EPS X00 series, said Alex Thily, senior vice president of sales and marketing for space at Safran, during an Aug. 6 presentation at the Small Satellite Conference here. The French line started producing the thrusters in the second quarter of the year, with the first scheduled to launch on an undisclosed satellite late this year.
The American facility will focus on U.S. government and commercial customers, with the French line focusing on customers in the rest of the world. “With this double manufacturing line, we are able to provide trust and confidence to both U.S. domestic, national programs as well as commercial programs,” he said.
The thrusters produced by the two lines will be identical other than the sourcing of components for its power processing unit. The units produced in the United States will use U.S. components while those made in France will use foreign components.
The EPS X00, or “X-hundred,” is designed to operate at power levels between 400 and 1,000 watts. The thruster can be configured to use either xenon or krypton as propellant with only minor changes to hardware. Krypton offers slightly lower performance than xenon but at significantly lower costs.
Safran envisions interest in the thruster from larger LEO satellites as well small GEO satellites, including use on megaconstellations and satellite servicing spacecraft. “We are definitely not trying to address small satellites like those 200 kilograms and less,” Thily said.
Each production line is designed to produce up to 200 thrusters per year, with the ability to surge to double that rate by adding personnel. He said Safran has purchased enough long-lead items to produce 300 thrusters by the end of 2025.
Thily said the company had not settled on a specific location in Colorado for the factory as it weighs several options. The facility will also host other Safran space businesses active in the U.S., including satellite communications and space domain awareness.